The St Andrews theatre company, which courted controversy in 2004 by portraying a homosexual Jesus Christ, is to stage the 1998 adaptation of Madama Butterfly for the first time in China.

It will be the first time that a version of Madama Butterfly has been performed in China.

David Henry Hwang’s play, M Butterfly, is about a male French diplomat who falls in love with a male Peking opera singer who masquerades as a woman and is a spy for the Chinese government. It’s set during the Cultural Revolution. The play is presented by Zuloo Theatre Productions, which was started in 2001 by three students from St Andrews University. In 2004, the theatre company caused a stir in Scotland by staging Terence McNally’s Corpus Christi in which Jesus and his disciples are portrayed as homosexuals.

Daniel Roy Connelly, the head of drama at the British International School Shanghai, is directing M Butterfly which will be staged in Shanghai from November 25 to… Read more